Interview

We have interviewed to Eliana Cárdenas, teacher of English who got retired in the 70´s. She studied English Pedagogy at Universidad Católica deValparaiso from 1959 to 1964.
She taught English at secondary schools from 1965 to 1973.

We asked her about the differences between Englisheducation in the 60’s and nowadays. She told us one of the main differences was that in the 60´s most of the Chilean pupils started to study Englishat the first year of the secondary school and nowadays they started learning English at kinder garden. They did not have the opportunity to getso much information at the moment they needed it, because of the technology they had it was just developing In fact few people had access totelevision. Nowadays, pupils can get information at the moment they need it.

We also asked her about the way she used to learn English at theuniversity. They had to buy the books they needed, because there weren´t soft copies at that time. If they didn´t have enough money to do it, they had tomake a hand copy of the issues they studied. The books didn´t have any kind of drawings, so the way to get the information was a little bitdifficult.

Finally, we asked her about some cultural differences between 60´s and nowadays. She told us the way in which they had fun. Theylistened to music in pickup record players, parties had another name (Malones) and they were usually organized in order to earn and save some money.